TWITTER WAS MORE FUN BEFORE well-known people like actors, celebrities, and NHL hockey players signed up. They’ve been a real kill-joy.
When I first join Twitter back in 2008, I intended to follow other writers—burgeoning fiction writers, freelance writers, poets of all stripes—and to tweet about my work. Or, rather to tweet about the constant struggle I faced in trying to balance full-time work with full-time creative pursuits. But by mid-2011, I was following actors, retired, professional hockey players, and a host of other well-known folks.
Once I started following amusing folks like @gapingvoid, @SimonPegg, @alecbaldwin, and @jannarden, my attention fell away from others, like @ckingwriter, @austinkleon, @iamami, and even my favourite @NikkiReimer.
On Twitter, users flooding the timeline—as famous folks, and heavy retweeters, are wont to do—means they drown out the voices of others.
Like 446 other tweeps, I follow @franlebowitz and she has tweeted just one time. I don’t even think that it’s her.
Within months, I felt guilty for ignoring the lesser known writers and artists and I soon began culling my Following list, and added more writers, like @anthonycarno.
For a while I found some of the famous folks more entertaining. They should be: These folks are, after all, professional performers. And they have more time on their hands to be creative (i.e., they are not held down by holding down 9-5 jobs), plus they seem to be more active in participating in their personal lives, instead of the narrow, work-personal life balance focus.
In other words, they have problems of the privileged.
Was the aforementioned Alec Baldwin’s photo of the Trans-Canada Highway taken on his drive to Banff from the front seat of a car any more glamorous than the one posted by @stephanddoris?
With nothing else to draw on, I clogged my timeline with retweets of the well-known and famous .
I’m a part-time creative writer, so, @vlpoulin follows tweets by @MargaretAtwood, @sheilaheti because I do so love their work and @quillandquire so that I can keep up on the business end of things; I rely on @DrWayneWDyer and @LouiseHay for spiritual advice in 140 characters.
I miss drama on television because the participants in reality/unscripted shows look and behave too much like the folks I know in real life. What’s entertaining about that? I can look around the office and see those people. I want glamour.
What I’ve discovered is that not many followers want to read about my friend Mandy, pouring me glass after Merlot, not stopping until a second bottle has been opened. Similarly, no one wants to read one-liners about my sad-sack weekend that I spent in bed with bad case of influenza, the irritation of dusting and cleaning toilets, the minor hockey games I attended, or gripes about the teenager who lives in my house. Where’s the glamour in that?
#Yawn. #Boring. #Notwinning.
The Twitterverse operates in real-time, so if we tweet while watching Oprah on her second mission allowing us an hour-long peek into lives of rich and famous in bits and pieces without Robin Leach’s narration, we feel a part of their lives, and hers, and of all of her tweeps.
There’s not a Twitter follower who cares to read about the challenges I face in my job as a technical writer, my daily commute, my annoyance with bad drivers, my son’s minor hockey results. #yawn #boring #notwinning.
Who, in their right mind, wants to be a part of the mundacity of my life? They’ve got their own, average lives to lead; they are not interested in mine.
Just ask @beanhere.